DIY Training Pants

As I mentioned in this post I'm thinking and planning on training my son, but the cost of store bought training pants is overwhelming and way more than we can afford.  This summer I've been scouring yard sales looking for underwear and training pants in good condition and last weekend I hit the jackpot.  I now feel like I have enough training pants and underwear to get through an entire day if he pees/poos in every single pair every half hour, haha.  Let's hope thats not the case, for mine and my washing machine's sake.
At one yard sale last weekend I scored 7 pair of white 2T underwear for $0.25 each.  I hate white underwear, especially for potty training because so many minutes of my day will inevitably be dedicated to stain removal.  So I decided to make all 7 of them into thick training pants.  I first saw the idea here, but didn't want to use up the few pair of cute underwear I had to make them.

To make the trainers I took some wax paper, a Sharpie, and a pair of the underwear.  I layed the wax paper over the underwear and traced a pattern around the front and then the back.  I cut it out and taped it together.

Then I cut the piece out of my prefold diapers, I'm gonna call it a soaker.

 Pin the soaker in place.

Now stitch it into place (sorry for the very poor quality of the pic below but at 5 am with no natural light, what's a girl to do). 

Here's how it looks turned right side out:

I didn't have white thread or you probably wouldn't even be able to tell there was a soaker sewn in.  These aren't water proof so I'll still have to have the rubber pants over top.  When I've discussed potty training with different people they have said using regular underwear can be a pain with the rubber pants because you get a puddle which ends up everywhere when you go to change them.  I'm hoping this sewn in soaker prevents this from happening. 

I have also acquired about 5 pair of these white training pants.  Again, I really hate plain white.

I have some PUL fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby specifically to use for training pants.  I'm in the process of adding a layer to my white training pants to cuten (is that a word, guess it is now) them up a little.

I haven't had the chance to sew the layer on but this is what it should look like.

I got the idea from this website.

I'm hoping over the next few days I will get to finish all my underwear trainers and my waterproof trainers to show off.

Training Underwear

I attempted to make training underwear for my little guy using PUL waterproof fabric and prefold diapers I already had on hand.  However after making one pair, which turned out super cute, I figured out they will not work.  I don't know if Grant is big for his age or what but the pattern I used took up the whole prefold so there is no way for me to use those with a larger pattern and I couldn't get it over his knees.   So now I'm gonna have to go a different route.  I made a pair of underwear out of one of Derrick's old t-shirts and my old sleep pants, just to get the size and fit correct.

I used Katrina's soaker pattern in an XL.  My son's waist is 19 1/2-20inches and his thighs are about 11 inches so I figured the XL would be a perfect fit.  Turns out they were a little too big but look how cute they still are on my little guy.

My new plan, since the PUL and flatfold diapers didn't work for us, is to make underwear out of old t-shirts and add a soaker layer with some PUL on the outside to make them waterproof.  I'm really excited to get started on them and I'm hoping to get a few pair done this week and maybe start training next Monday.  I'm nervous already!

Training Underwear

My son has recently started showing signs he may be ready to start potty training.  He is very very very stubborn so I'm a little scared and want to start slow by just introducing him to the concept.  I bought a potty seat Saturday and started looking at training underwear.  Holy Crap those things are pricey.  The only brand I could find were Gerber packages of 3 for about $6.  When I started thinking about the fact that I would probably go through 3 training pants in about an hour (my little guy drinks alot) and therefore would need 30 pair or more, I began to panic a little....Ok ALOT! 

Like always I started trying to think of how to make my own or at least cut the cost in some way.   I will be keeping my eye out for training pants and underwear at yard sales but until I hit that jackpot,  I was lucky enough to have received about 3 packages of the flat prefold cloth diapers as baby shower gifts with Grant and have been trying to figure out how to turn those into waterproof training pants.  I thought if I could make cloth diapers why couldn't I make training pants.

Of course I packed all those prefolds in boxes during the move and they have remained in boxes since I did not think I would be needing them until another baby came along.  I considered buying another package and starting with those however when I added up the cost of cloth diapers (about $12), waterproof PUL fabric (about $9/yd with a 40% off coupon), and elastic, it averaged out to be about $2 a pair.  So it would have been pointless and my husband's honey-do list got one more thing added to it: Find prefold cloth diapers!

I have been looking for free patterns online and tutorials and after a couple late nights surfing the internet (oh the things us wives/moms will do to save a little cash or find an excuse to craft) I found 2 that I really like and seemed to suit my needs.

This one is my favorite and the one I think I'll go with since I really want the waterproof layer to avoid having to buy the rubber pants.

(Are these cute or what?)

Here is the other one I found and I would probably use it with an added PUL layer if I already had one of those things to put snaps on (have no idea what their official name is so I'll just call it the snap thingy).  I want to buy one eventually, especially before we have baby #2, for cloth diaper making but for now I want to avoid that expense.

These could also be used as a regular cloth diaper if you put a waterproof layer overtop and then you could graduate into potty training with them.  I am always trying to get more than one use out of everything.  It's a sickness.

I'm hoping to get started on these this week.  They are added to my craft to-do list that continuously gets longer and longer.  But maybe I'll have a few to show off my finished masterpieces, haha.